


Red, silver and blue

by Laura_Sinele



Series: Fictober 2019 drabbles [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Crack, Fictober 2019, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mentions of Murder, Mild Language, Sex Shop, mentions of BDSM, not serious nor explicit at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-15 10:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20864795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laura_Sinele/pseuds/Laura_Sinele
Summary: Tony wants Steve to bring him something from Amsterdam for Miss Potts. Steve is flustered but Bucky is there to save the day.





	Red, silver and blue

**Author's Note:**

> Not completely happy with this one, but happy enough to post it. I'm a sucker for Stucky.
> 
> Prompt 2: Just follow me, I know the area.

“No. Absolutely not. Don’t you think that’s a bit too much?”

Buck was listening too, and he was doubled down with silent laughter, hand covering his face and shoulders shaking uncontrollably.

“Honestly, I don’t see where the problem is, cap. I’m just asking you to grab a present for my fiancée…”

Steve interrupted him, stammering with embarrassment and annoyance.

“A very specific kind of present, Tony! I really don’t think Miss Potts is going to be happy knowing that it was me and Bucky who picked up her lingerie!”

“I never said you should take Barnes. And I did say specifically erotic lingerie. Barnes, are you listening?”

“Right here, Stark”, managed to wheeze Bucky. Steve rolled his eyes.

“Just, feel free to not go shopping lingerie for my girlfriend with Rogers. That’d be weird”. While Bucky laughed, Steve tried to complain again, but Tony spoke over him. “Okay, it’s settled then. Take your time, no need to be back in a hurry, take care, have fun, don’t let the bed bugs bite, and all that jazz”, and he cut communication. 

Bucky was delighted. Acclimatation to this new world and new life had been hard, and he did not have fun really often, so Steve’s indignant face right now was a real treat. Having Steve around made things way easier. He never stopped wondering how would have it been for Steve, with nobody from his time aside from an elderly Peggy Carter.

This intel mission they had just finished in Amsterdam had allowed them to have some time together and apart from “the kids”, as they jokingly referred to the rest of the team. Tony’s suggestion to take some time off there seemed pretty appealing to Bucky, regardless of any potentially embarrassing trip to the Red Light District’s sex shops. Which took him back to Steve’s expression, between flustered and upset. 

“Okay, buddy, listen…”

“Don’t”, said Steve.

“What? You don’t know what I was going to say”, complained Bucky.

“Something along ‘it’s not a big deal, think of it as a mission’?”

Bucky smiled widely. Steve did know him well.

“Okay then, now seriously. Stark is obviously messing with you. The feisty, tiny Steve I knew, would probably hit him back twice as hard, so why wouldn’t big, buff Steve do the same?”

Steve looked at him with a furrowed brow. He then looked away and then down at his hands fiddling with his baseball cap. He looked up at Bucky, rising an eyebrow and said:

“Buff?”

Bucky smiled, slapped lightly his shoulder and let his mechanical hand rest there to stir Steve into movement. “I am updating my vocabulary, Captain. Now let’s find something scandalous enough to make Stark blush”.

“I can’t even imagine what that would be”, sighed Steve, reverting to his embarrassed state as they neared the entrance of the Red Light District.

“Oh, you just follow me, pal”, said Bucky with a wink. “I know the area”.

\--

If Steve had been updating his vocabulary as enthusiastically as Bucky, he’d say he was “tripping major balls”. Instead, he settled for a much more boring “shocked”. Bucky walked around pointing landmarks and possible destinations as if he had been visiting these streets weekly for the past decade. He even knew what to call most of the items the “erotic boutiques” offered. When they entered a store dedicated to BDSM products and Bucky started to explain how to use what Steve was sure he’d seen in a documentary about the Spanish Inquisition, he thought he’d had enough.

“Buck, stop. I don’t really want to know. I don’t even know if I want to ask how on earth did you learn all this”.

“Well. While I was the Winter Soldier some of my targets, most of them actually, had a very specific taste. Not that I’m proud of it, but I happened to match that taste and it was a very effective way to approach them. And discreet”, he explained in a whisper.

Steve stared at him, battling with astonishment, grief, anger and, for some reason, a teeny tiny bit of arousal he tried really hard to ignore. In the end he declared: “Enough. I’ve had enough”, and headed to the exit. Bucky followed him and caught him in the street.

“Hey!”, he called. Steve turned around to face him reluctantly, one hand resting on his hip, the other scratching his brow, eyes pointedly avoiding his childhood friend. “Hey, buddy. What’s wrong?”

Steve opened widely his eyes and rose his palms facing the sky, instantly becoming de embodiment of the sound “duh”. He shook himself, exuding incredulity and after a few tries he managed to say: “I don’t know, Buck. It always grinds my gears when I think about your life this past few decades. And now I find out they made you… that you had to put yourself in intimate situations? And it’s not as if I’m comfortable talking about sex, either, okey? Some of you forget that I’m just a 90 year-old virgin!”

Steve had risen his voice unwillingly and many heads turned in the crowd, most of them sporting a condescendent smile. He tried to make himself small bending his head down and burrowing his hands in his pockets. Bucky got closer to him and set his hands on Steve’s shoulders before trying to make eye contact. 

“I am sorry, Steve. I really am. I am trying to get over it, to make it sound like war tales that happened to someone else. You know I’m not proud of what I did. I hate it, actually. But as memories from then and before come back, I’m just glad it happened because otherwise I’d died or I’d lived only to lose you to a freezing ocean. We’ve both gone through serious bullshit. But we met at the end of the line. I’d never change that”. He squeezed Steve’s shoulders and Steve finally looked up, his eyes meeting Bucky’s and his hands resting on his best friend waist. 

“Ah… I’m sorry too. For snapping like that. It’s not your fault that I got freezed nor that I got the serum”.

“It’s not your fault either that I fell off that train and that nasty little Frankenstein experimented with me”.

“It kind of is…”

“It isn’t”, said Bucky, sliding his hands up Steve’s nape reassuringly. “Look at me. You saved me more times than you know. And, again, if hadn’t fallen, we wouldn’t be here”.

Steve remained silent, looking at James Buchanan Barnes, his childhood friend. Sergeant of the US Army. The infamous Winter Soldier. Bucky. He threw himself into a tight embrace with him, letting sink the idea that they were there, at that time and place, together, still young. Able to start again at any given time. 

Bucky returned the hug gladly, and broke it gently after a while. “Let’s go back to the apartment, yeah? Let’s have a quiet night in and try again tomorrow with Stark’s stupid errand”.

Steve nodded and led the way, unable to erase a peaceful, content smile from his face. 

\--

Bucky exited the bathroom after his shower, with a towel wrapped around his waist and another one over his head. He was going to his bedroom but he stopped on his tracks at the sight of Steve sitting on the couch nursing a beer and staring broodingly at some point between the living room carpet and the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914.

“Hey. Alright?”, he said as he approached him, removing the towel from his head and wondering what might have gotten Steve so preoccupied after their pleasant way back to this place.

“Uh, yeah. Everything’s fine. You done with the shower? I think I’ll take one too”.

“Cut the crap, Captain. I’ve known you forever. What’s going on?”

They were standing face to face. Bucky was looking at Steve sternly, holding each end of the towel thrown around his neck. Steve must have been wishing to become his pre-serum self, avoiding Bucky’s gaze and biting into his bottom lip. Bucky caught himself just about to rise his hand and free Steve’s lip with a stroke of his thumb. He wondered if this kind of impulse was there before the war, before the serum, or something else had put it there. 

“It’s stupid, really. Nothing to do with war, or saving the world or anything”.

Bucky was both relieved and confused. He relaxed his stance and nodded. “Okay, well. What is it then?”

Steve sighed, closed his eyes and threw back his head in defeat. 

“Ah, really, it’s nothing. I just… I was thinking, okay? How I’m this world-known hero for everyone, and how I’ve got so much more in common with the old veterans than my own team. I’m grateful for you, for having someone from before. But even before… Ah, shit, I don’t even know what’s up with me”. 

“It’s okay, Steve. I’m listening”.

Steve paused for a moment and locked eyes with him. Bucky felt an indescribable weight on his chest and wondered what was he afraid of, if he ever had been afraid of Steve Rogers, or Captain America, before. Steve lowered his eyes to the scars on Bucky’s torso before talking again, and he traced them tentatively, lost in his own head.

“I used to look up at you. I always thought I didn’t need you, that I could stand my own. I never called you and you were always there, through school, through hardship, through my mum’s death… I really wanted to enroll for myself and for my country, for the innocent people dying in Europe. But most of all I was scared that you wouldn’t come back and I needed to be there to make sure you were okay”. Steve breathed a laugh and kept tracing Bucky’s scars up to his arm. Bucky didn’t know where was this heading, but he told himself he was staring at Steve’s lips just so he wouldn’t miss a word. Steve resumed his speech:

“The thing is, I always thought you’d be around. I took you for granted, but I also felt I was responsible of you. Any fight with your parents, you’d tell me. Any dream or fear. Any girl you liked. More than the fear and the rage about what they did to you, what shakes me everytime is that I wasn’t there or that you can’t tell me half of it because you don’t remember. There’s a part of your life, of you, that I missed, and every time it hits me, I lose my grip of things”. Steve let his fingers slide down Bucky’s metal arm and there was a silence after that, heavy as a blanket and just as warm. When Bucky managed to untangle the knot in his throat, he said:

“Doesn’t sound stupid to me”.

Steve scoffed and covered his face with both hands. He rubbed his eyes and put his hands in the pockets of his jeans, smiling widely but obviously embarrassed.

“No, it probably doesn’t. What is stupid, though is… Ah, I can’t, nevermind”.

Bucky was amused, now, and he totally needed to know. He grabbed Steve’s shoulder when he motioned to turn his back to him. 

“Hey, no, no, no, no. Don’t leave this way, I could use some of your good old stupidity”.

“Ah, okay, fine. Don’t laugh”.

“I promise nothing”.

“Okay, you little shit. Ah… It’s about… Jesus, help me. Okay. Here I go. You now how everything in this century is just all about sex? And I’m trying to get used to it but it still flusters me. I thought that I wasn’t the last prude of America anymore because I’d found you but then you go and tell me you where some sort of kinky sex assistant or whatever and I’m… Upset. There. I said it, okay? I’m upset that you had a sex life which is something very mature and clever to say. What are you laughing at?”

“Your face. And the way you’re telling it. ‘Kinky sex assistant’? I swear to God, Stevie…”

Steve pushed Bucky playfully, and he tried to stop laughing, very unsuccessfully. When he finally calmed down they had sit back on the couch, since Bucky could hardly hold himself standing. Steve looked at him, still a bit embarrassed but with eyes aglow with laughter. 

“Thanks for not laughing. You are a good friend”, he said as he patted Bucky’s knee.

“Oh, oh poor Steve. I’m sorry, I really am. But listen, pal. There’s something you need to know”. Steve lifted an inquisitive eyebrow and Bucky was caught in another fit of laughter. “Listen. Listen, I never said I did anything with my targets. The kinky sex, as you put it, was an excuse. I’m a 90 year-old virgin too. Only I’m a little bit more educated than you”.

Steve made the most confused face and tried to talk several times, only to stammer and shut up, crestfallen, which sent Bucky cackling. When he finally gathered himself he asked:

“But how? I’m not saying you had to do it with the people you were set off to kill but… I mean, I was frozen for 70 years, what’s your excuse?”

Bucky got slowly off the laughter before answering. He looked at Steve’s genuine curious look and he wondered if he really didn’t know. Immediately, he wondered for how long since leaving HYDRA had he known. He stared into Steve's eyes for a while, pondering his options and their outcomes. He finally decided for ambiguity. 

“There wasn’t anybody I wanted to do it with in this time”.

A look of sadness overcame Steve, who delicately held and squeezed Bucky’s flesh hand.

“I’m sorry I brought it up”.

“I’m not”.

“Did I know her?”.

Bucky thought “Fuck it” and talked before he could think it twice.

“Him. Yeah, you did. Not as well as you knew me, though”.

Steve’s eyes were wide open, but Bucky couldn’t tell with which emotion. At least, he thought, he hadn’t let go of his hand. Bucky held on tighter and made a point not to look away from Steve’s gaze. 

“Steve, one of the best things of coming back to my senses was realising that I could say out loud how much I liked a man as well as a woman. Back then there wasn’t much of space to talk about it. I didn’t even knew liking both was possible. I knew I liked most of the girls I dated. But when things got serious I just… I could only think that I needed to get back home and check on you. See if you had eaten, if you hadn’t got into any fight, get you into bed and kiss you good night. Sometimes I even allowed myself to imagine me staying with you for the night. Just holding you, keeping you warm. I’d get us money and food, you’d stay at home because you were always sick. I’d take care of you. I just needed you to be happy in return. And when I thought those things I couldn’t care less about any girl, anyone really, that my cousins wanted to introduce me to”.

A single tear was gliding down Steve’s face. He let go off Bucky’s hand to wash it away, took a deep breath and stood up, looking antsy. 

“Steve…”

“Fuck you, James Buchanan Barnes!”

“Steve, I’m sor‒”

“Shut up!”, shouted Steve while turning to face Bucky. Tears were streaming now down his face and he covered his mouth as if willing the shout to come back in. “You don’t get to say you’re sorry just like that. You don’t get to put me through all your girlfriends and their girlfriends, you don’t tell me you’re enlisting yourself and leaving my sorry ass in Brooklyn, to come back 70 years later and tell me you wanted a married life with me. Now. Now that I’m tall and strong and healthy and… buff. For love’s sake, Bucky, I fucking hate you!”

Steve turned his back to Bucky and started crying for good now. Bucky’s heart was beating like a steam roller as he stood up, wrapped his arms around Steve's chest, laid his head on his shoulder and breathed out shakily, afraid that Steve would snap at him. 

“If I had found you, short, scrawny, asthmatic, in this time, I would have never hesitated. I would had never asked myself what was that feeling”. Steve took in a deep breath and covered Bucky’s hands with his. Bucky hold onto him tighter. “It is nice that you are tall and strong, and specially it is so very relieving to know you are healthy. But I fell in love with you back then. I just didn’t know better to give in to it”.

Steve turned around in Bucky’s arms and let Bucky softly kiss his eyelids, his cheeks and his lips. It was a feather touch after which Bucky took Steve’s face between his hands, searching for any sign of his best friend thoughts. Steve mimicked him, tacking his face between his hands, and kissed him passionately, pushing them towards the couch. As he did, Bucky’s towel fell from his waist.

“Hey, hey, hey! You said you were prude?”, joked Bucky between kisses.

“Shush, got decades to compensate for”.

\--

Bucky was reading the paper near the window at their kitchenette in the Avenger’s facilities. Steve was stirring his coffee and shamelessly checking him out. They’d come here straight from the hangar, and they were waiting for Stark to show up anytime soon, Steve strategically placed to be at his back when he entered the room. 

“Ah, Terminator, back from Amsterdam I see?”. Bucky merely acknowledged him, nodding and biting off a smile. 

“We’ve got something for you”, said Steve, causing Tony to dramatically turn around from the open fridge. Steve held up a small, luxurious-looking black shopping bag with red tissue paper peeking out of it.

“Excellent! What is it?”, asked Tony, taking it. His face immediately fell when he saw the bag content. Bucky took it as his cue to stand up and hold de door open for him and Steve to leave. “But this is… mangerie?”, asked Tony, perplexed, examining an heterodoxical piece of clothing with more lace than seemed possible to keep in its scarce surface. 

“Yup. You wanted a present for her. I bet she will enjoy much more to see you wearing it than wearing something to please you”.

“But wait, guys! This has no tag!”. Steve bit his bottom lip and looked at Bucky. Bucky smirked and they both left with Tony’s exclamations at their wake. “Come on, did you use it? Be straight to me! Or, well, don’t. No judging, love is love. Hm. It smells clean at least”.


End file.
